The Chair of Scotland’s independent living fund (ILF) has told delegates at the annual NHS Scotland conference that the organisation is “desperate” to reopen the fund to new applicants.

At a plenary session on the future of Scotland’s national care service, Susan Douglas-Scott from ILF Scotland said her team “stand ready to reopen”.

Currently almost 1000 people with disabilities are in receipt of payments from the fund, which maximises self-directed support for disabled adults through additional person-centred payments, but it has been closed to new applicants since 2010.

Ms Douglas-Scott said: “We are really keen and desperate really [to reopen] because disabled people are saying to us constantly, “we need this dying fund” because it’s a group of people who need this to live independently but it’s closed.”

The Independent Review of Adult Social Care suggested nearly 3,500 people could benefit from funding to support their wellbeing and independence if the ILF was reopened and that the fund should be part of the future national care service.

An additional investment of £32m in the ILF, according to review author Derek Feeley, would be needed if the fund was to reopen to new applicants.

In response to Ms Douglas-Scott’s comments, the Director of Social Care and National Care Service Development at the Scottish Government, Donna Bell, said she was unable to provide an update on plans for the fund.

Independent living and choice about how people live their lives is “an underpinning of a national care service as we move forward more broadly”, according to the social care director.

She added that budget processes are coming up in the next few months and that the government “may have more to say at that point”.

Legislation to establish a national care service in Scotland was introduced to the Scottish parliament yesterday.

Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Humza Yousaf says the legislation remains the most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS:

“People have told us they want a National Care Service, accountable to Scottish Ministers, with services designed and delivered locally. That’s exactly what we are going to deliver.

“The design of the NCS will have human rights embedded throughout, and the actual shape and detail of how the NCS works will be designed with those who have direct experience of accessing and providing social care.”

 

Read more: “Significant” cash boost for Independent Living Fund; Unlocking a different approach to social care; Sturgeon: NCS legislation within a year of SNP win

 

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